Children's Noncompliance Research Articles

Evaluation of emailed prompts to promote generalization and maintenance of preschool teachers' effective instruction delivery

AbstractYoung children's noncompliance with adult instructions has the potential to lead to a variety of other internalizing and externalizing difficulties that impact learning, behavior, and overall development. Although a variety of effective intervention strategies exist, early childhood teachers may not be well equipped to consistently implement these strategies to prevent and address young children's noncompliance. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of a novel teacher implementation support, emailed prompts, to promote early childhood teachers' effective instruction delivery with three children referred for noncompliance and related challenging behaviors. Results indicated that all three teachers increased their accuracy of effective instruction delivery with concomitant improvements in children's response to instructions, including compliance. Furthermore, data suggested that all three teachers spontaneously generalized effective instruction delivery to other non‐referred children in their classrooms. Results, implications, and limitations are discussed.

Parental self-efficacy and satisfaction with parenting as mediators of the association between children’s noncompliance and marital satisfaction

Parents of young children who exhibit behavioral problems often experience lower marital satisfaction. In the present study we aimed to explore the association between preschool children's noncompliant behavior and marital satisfaction, and to explain it through the mediating role of parental self-efficacy and satisfaction with parenting. Participants were 188 married Israeli couples with a typically developing child aged 3 to 6, selected in a convenience sample. Mothers and fathers independently completed measures of child’s behavior, marital satisfaction, parental self-efficacy, and satisfaction with parenting. Data were collected between September 2019 and February 2020 and were analyzed using the common fate model (CFM). Results indicate a direct, negative association between child's noncompliant behavior and marital satisfaction, which was fully explained by parental self-efficacy and satisfaction with parenting. The study suggests that both parents are affected by their young child’s noncompliance, with a spillover effect from the parent–child relationship into the marital relationship. The findings highlight the importance of early treatment of children's noncompliance and indicate that interventions aimed at enhancing parents’ self-efficacy and satisfaction, as well as the inclusion of both parents in treatment, may be beneficial.

Current Situation of Treatment and Follow-up Re-examination of Children with Epilepsy at Vietnam National Children’s Hospital

Purpose: To assess treatment compliance and follow-up appointment of children with epilepsy at the Vietnam National Children’s Hospital in 2019.
 Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on pediatric patients and primary caregivers came for examination and treatment at the Neurology Department, Vietnam National Children’s Hospital from January 2019 to December 2019.
 Results: Mean age was 74.3 ± 45.1 (month age). The most common age group was the 2-6 year old group (40.5%), the lower rate was the 6-12 year old group (30.0%), and rest groups was the low rate. The male: female ratio is 1.43:1. Most of the main caregivers are parents (92.5%). Average treatment time was 20.4 ± 15.7 months, the rate of good adherence to treatment 43.5%, 31.5% of children had moderated adhering to treatment and 25.0% had poor adhering to treatment. Within 6 months, 40.5% of children re-examined on time. The reasons for not complying with on-time re-examination were mainly due to the caregiver's busy work or the child was busy at school (37.8%) and the distance from home to hospital (26.1%).
 Conclusions: The percentage of patients who complied with treatment and re-examination was not high. Factors that were statistically significant for children's non-compliance were: health insurance level, age of onset, duration of treatment, and frequency of attacks following treatment.

Emulating real-life situations with a play task to observe parenting skills and child behaviors.

Play tasks that use standardized procedures and materials are a practical way to assess parenting skills, child behaviors, and the ways in which parents and children interact. We describe a systematic process for developing the parent-child play task (PCPT) to assess mother-child interactions for a randomized controlled trial of a video-based parenting program. Participants were 307 mothers and their 3- to 6-year-old children who presented oppositional and disruptive behavior challenges. The validity of the PCPT was investigated by testing (a) the extent to which the tasks elicited the specific parent and child behaviors of interest, (b) the consistency of individuals' behavior across the play tasks, and (c) the concurrent associations of the PCPT-observed child behaviors and mother reports of child behavior. The different tasks elicited the mother and child behaviors that they were designed to elicit. Behavior consistency across tasks for individual mothers and children was fair to good, with the exception of 2 task-specific behaviors. Mother's guidance (provision of instructions to foster a skill) during the teaching task and children's interruptions while mother was busy during the questionnaire task were highly task specific. Modest associations were found between observed children's noncompliance and inappropriate behaviors and mother-reported conduct problems and oppositional behaviors. Implications for clinical and research assessments are discussed.

Coercive family process and early-onset conduct problems from age 2 to school entry

The emergence and persistence of conduct problems (CPs) during early childhood is a robust predictor of behavior problems in school and of future maladaptation. In this study we examined the reciprocal influences between observed coercive interactions between children and caregivers, oppositional and aggressive behavior, and growth in parent report of early childhood (ages 2-5) and school-age CPs (ages 7.5 and 8.5). Participants were drawn from the Early Steps multisite randomized prevention trial that includes an ethnically diverse sample of male and female children and their families (N = 731). A parallel-process growth model combining latent trajectory and cross-lagged approaches revealed the amplifying effect of observed coercive caregiver-child interactions on children's noncompliance, whereas child oppositional and aggressive behaviors did not consistently predict increased coercion. The slope and initial levels of child oppositional and aggressive behaviors and the stability of caregiver-child coercion were predictive of teacher-reported oppositional behavior at school age. Families assigned to the Family Check-Up condition had significantly steeper declines in child oppositional and aggressive behavior and moderate reductions in oppositional behavior in school and in coercion at age 3. Results were not moderated by child gender, race/ethnicity, or assignment to the intervention condition. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to understanding the early development of CPs and to designing optimal strategies for reducing problem behavior in early childhood with families most in need.

Interactions between serotonin transporter gene haplotypes and quality of mothers' parenting predict the development of children's noncompliance.

The LPR and STin2 polymorphisms of the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4) were combined into haplotypes that, together with quality of maternal parenting, were used to predict initial levels and linear change in children's (N = 138) noncompliance and aggression from age 18-54 months. Quality of mothers' parenting behavior was observed when children were 18 months old, and nonparental caregivers' reports of noncompliance and aggression were collected annually from 18 to 54 months of age. Quality of early parenting was negatively related to the slope of noncompliance only for children with the LPR-S/STin2-10 haplotype and to 18-month noncompliance only for children with haplotypes that did not include LPR-S. The findings support the notion that SLC6A4 haplotypes index differential susceptibility to variability in parenting quality, with certain haplotypes showing greater reactivity to both supportive and unsupportive environments. These different genetic backgrounds likely reflect an evolutionary response to variation in the parenting environment.

Children's noncompliance during saliva collection predicts measures of salivary cortisol

Salivary cortisol has been useful for evaluating children's physiological responses to stress and for identifying factors that predict their magnitude and duration. However, results have been somewhat equivocal across studies, and this has motivated researchers to identify sources of variance and error. Here, we examined the prevalence of preschoolers' noncompliance during saliva collection and aimed to learn about noncompliant children in terms of their hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal function, behavior in other situations, and symptoms of behavioral problems. Results were based on measures of cortisol, children's behavior during saliva collection and a mother-child teaching interaction, and ratings of problem behavior by teachers and parents. Results show that 12% (21/174) of the sample was noncompliant on at least one of the collection trials. Children, who were noncompliant but did not outright refuse saliva collection, had higher cortisol than did compliant children. Children who were noncompliant during saliva collection were likely to be noncompliant during the teaching episode, and they were perceived as having more internalizing symptoms than compliant children. These results suggest that children's noncompliance during saliva collection can be a source of nonrandom missing data or extreme cortisol values, which should be considered in future studies.

Effects of maternal childhood aggression and social withdrawal on maternal request strategies and child compliance and noncompliance

This prospective, intergenerational study investigated the influences of maternal histories of childhood aggression and social withdrawal on maternal request strategies and child compliance and noncompliance. Seventy-four women from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, who were rated during childhood using peer nomination measures of aggression and social withdrawal, played with their 2–6 year-old children in three naturalistic conditions. Videotaped interactions were coded for mothers' requests and children's compliance/noncompliance. The results revealed that mothers who were socially withdrawn during childhood were more likely to employ intrusive requests (i.e., physical interventions, repetitions, and requests without opportunity to comply), which subsequently predicted children's noncompliant behaviour. In addition, mothers who were aggressive during childhood were more likely to repeat their requests, which also predicted children's noncompliance. Furthermore, the findings replicated previous research indicating that children demonstrate more sophisticated forms of noncompliance with age. Taken together, results from this study elucidate the trajectories of childhood aggression and social withdrawal, and provide evidence for possible pathways by which problematic behaviour is transferred from mother to child in vulnerable populations. This research has implications for the design of preventative interventions for at-risk families.

Noncompliance and child-rearing attitudes as predictors of aggressive behaviour: A longitudinal study in Chinese children

The purpose of the study was to examine contributions of early personal and socialisation factors to the prediction of aggressive behaviour in Chinese children. A sample of children, initially at 2 years of age, and their parents in the People's Republic of China participated in this two-year longitudinal study. Observational data were collected on children's noncompliance in mother-child interactions at Time 1 and aggressive behaviour in peer interactions at Time 2. In addition, information concerning child-rearing attitudes were obtained from parental reports. The results indicated that boys had higher scores than girls on physical and verbal aggression at 4 years of age. Early noncompliance significantly and positively predicted aggressive behaviour. Parental child-rearing attitudes had unique, but generally weak, contributions to the prediction of aggression. Finally, the relations between child-rearing variables and child aggression might be different for boys and girls.

Interactive effects of parents’ trait verbal aggressiveness and situational frustration on parents’ self‐reported anger

In recent years, communication scholars have begun to examine the role of trait verbal aggressiveness in shaping relationships between parents and children. The present study examined the interactive effects of parents’ trait verbal aggressiveness and frustration induced by interaction with children on parents’ subjective experience of anger. Specifically, we hypothesized that parent anger in response to children's noncompliance is a function of an ordinal interaction between parents’ trait verbal aggressiveness and situational frustration. A multiple regression equation employing (1) parents’ trait verbal aggressiveness scores, situational frustration scores, and a multiplicative function as predictor variables, and (2) parent anger scores as the dependant variable, accounted for 33.93 percent of the variance in anger scores with only the trait verbal aggressiveness X frustration interaction contributing significantly to the equation. These results confirm the interactionist perspective upon which the hypothesis was founded.

Noncompliant behavior, overactivity, and family stress as predictors of negative maternal control with preschool children

AbstractThe independent contributions of preschool children's noncompliance and overactivity/inattention and measures of family stress to the prediction of negative maternal control were examined in two cohorts of children. In Cohort 1, children's noncompliant and hyperactive behavior each predicted more negative maternal control, whereas in Cohort 2, the interaction between noncompliance and overactivity was predictive of particularly high levels of negative control. In Cohort 2, stressful life events, maternal depression, and marital distress were also associated with negative maternal control. Stressful life events interacted with noncompliance indicating that the combination of a difficult child and a high level of family stress exacerbated the tendency of mothers of preschool children to exert negative control to gain compliance. Results indicate that factors external to the mother-child relationship exert an independent influence on maternal behavior.

Noncompliant behavior, overactivity, and family stress as predictors of negative maternal control with preschool children

AbstractThe independent contributions of preschool children's noncompliance and overactivity/inattention and measures of family stress to the prediction of negative maternal control were examined in two cohorts of children. In Cohort 1, children's noncompliant and hyperactive behavior each predicted more negative maternal control, whereas in Cohort 2, the interaction between noncompliance and overactivity was predictive of particularly high levels of negative control. In Cohort 2, stressful life events, maternal depression, and marital distress were also associated with negative maternal control. Stressful life events interacted with noncompliance indicating that the combination of a difficult child and a high level of family stress exacerbated the tendency of mothers of preschool children to exert negative control to gain compliance. Results indicate that factors external to the mother-child relationship exert an independent influence on maternal behavior.

The efficacy of response cost procedures for reducing children's noncompliance to parental instructions

Using a multiple baseline design across families, the present study examined the effectiveness of response cost when used by parents. Three mother-child dyads were observed in the home during baseline, treatment, and follow-up conditions. Mothers were taught to implement response cost procedures for children's misbehavior. Children were awarded free points at the beginning of several time periods during the day. Points were then lost contingent upon misbehavior. Children were allowed access to daily and weekly privileges for periods with minimal point loss. The results showed substantial decreases in children's noncompliance, as well as in aversive parent and child behavior across all families. In addition, all mothers indicated that response cost was a highly acceptable and satisfactory treatment.

The role of contextual variables in maternal reactions to children's compliance and noncompliance

The present study was designed to assess whether certain contexts influenced material reactions to children's compliant and noncompliant behavior. Study 1 examined the following contextual variables: chronic negative conditions of the child (physical illness and psychological disturbance) and recent life events experienced by the child (both positive and negative). Study 2 examined maternal mood states as another contextual variable. Results indicated that these contexts relate to differential choices of discipline techniques, based on maternal self-report. These data are examined in light of the literature on treatment acceptability and are discussed in terms of a signal-detection model. Clinical applications are addressed, and suggestions for future research are offered.

A developmental interpretation of young children's noncompliance.

A developmental interpretation of young children's noncompliance.

A developmental interpretation of young children's noncompliance.

A developmental interpretation of young children's noncompliance.

Young Children's Compliance and Noncompliance to Parental Discipline in a Natural Setting

In order to determine the effects of different parental disciplinary techniques on young children's compliance and noncompliance, mothers were trained to observe emotional incidents involving their own toddler-aged children. Reports of disciplinary encounters were analyzed in terms of the types of discipline used (reasoning, verbal prohibition, physical coercion, love withdrawal, and combinations thereof) and children's responses to that discipline (compliance/noncompliance and avoidance). The relation between compliance/noncompliance and type of misdeed (harm to persons, harm to property, and lapses of self-control) was also analyzed. Results indicated that love withdrawal combined with other techniques was most effective in securing children's compliance and that its effectiveness was not a function of the type of technique with which it was combined. Avoidant responses and affective reunification with the parent were more likely to follow love withdrawal than any other technique. Physical coercion was somewhat less effective than love withdrawal, while reasoning and verbal prohibition were not at all effective except when both were combined with physical coercion.

Immediate antecedents of caretaker's methods of discipline.

The interactions of children's behaviors and caretakers' disciplinary practices were studied. Mothers of one- to two-year-old children were trained to report parent-child interactions involving negative emotions. Mothers' observations thus provided data on sequences of child behaviors and parental discipline methods in affective encounters. Mothers' most frequent initial responses to children's misbehaviors were verbal prohibitions. Discipline methods less commonly used were explanations, restraint, instruction, physical punishment, and love withdrawal. Mothers made greater use of this range of control methods following children's noncompliance to discipline. Types of discipline were used differentially following noncompliance, depending upon the form of misbehavior. Children's harms against persons were associated with psychological discipline methods, such as reasoning and dramatization of distress. Destruction or property and lapses in self-control in children were associated with parental power assertive techniques, such as physical punishment and love withdrawal. These associations between child behaviors and parental discipline methods illustrate the interactive roles of child and parent in mediating parental attempts to control, teach, and punish their children.